At Last

The 2008 presidential election was often stripped down to a spitball battle fought across our nation’s racial divide. Rural whites wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama; urban Blacks (if they did vote) wouldn’t vote for John McCain. Generalizations—both unfair and inaccurate—were cast long before the first votes were, including the assertion that Black voters were only backing Obama because of the shared ethnicity. McCain supporters, Independents, and members of the press at times belittled a vote for Obama as being founded on nothing but the color of his skin.

This was not true in my case, though I know that I certainly cannot speak for all of my fellow African-American voters; it is an inescapable truth that there were those who did, indeed, base their votes solely on the racial makeup of the man. But Barack Obama’s dynamic ability to inspire, pragmatic leadership, and progressive views were what solidified my belief in him. And I am sure that I’m not the only one. My decision was formed by qualifications, not melanin; by character, not a selfish desire to “help a brotha out.” I was guided by issues, and race was not one of them…

…Until it was all over. I sat on my couch last night, soaking in the realization. I’m far from what one might consider an “emotional” person; but suddenly I found myself trembling as it all hit home. All of the difficulties and struggles endured by so many for so many years. My eyes watered. Without being prompted by any crowd or by Sen. Obama himself, I found myself breathlessly mouthing the words that were a fervent war cry for the campaign. “Yes, we can.”

The questionable run-ins with police. The slurs—some “accidental,” some blatant. The awkward stares when amongst a predominantly white crowd. The paranoid feeling that I’m being devalued behind the eyes focused on me. Tears trickled down my cheeks.

“Yes we can.”

My father’s seventy-plus years of working to make a better life for himself and for all those that he loves, from a North Carolina farm to the United States Navy to corporate America. Him telling me, from my earliest days, that I can be anyone I want to be, and do anything that I put heart and soul into doing. Family who’ve lost friends to violence; friends who’ve lost family to violence. I wiped my face futilely, as the tears became a stream of spent stress and pain being released.

“Yes, we can.”

My grandparents, who were born and raised in a South that reverberated with the overt discrimination and danger that is often no more than a haunting apparition in 2008. The resiliency they showed, never letting a hellish societal structure prevent them from raising seven children—many of whom would go on to see successes that they themselves wouldn’t. I thought of the wonder and disbelief that would be overcoming them, had they lived to see this day. I sobbed.

“Yes, we can.”

I have many white friends. So often I get asked for perspective on racial tension, for a side to the story that they can never know for themselves. If I could put them into that moment, sitting on a couch crying uncontrollably at “McCain 145, Obama 283,” feeling like maybe, just maybe, I belong too. I think they would all finally understand. They could then, at last, see it all; feel it all.

Yes, we can.